The Lances Unlifted
by Cricket Songs
Summary: She cries out her frustration and she swears that as soon as she is free, as soon as the ropes have been cut, she will draw blood - and Death hovers at her shoulders all night. Some insight into Ziva's captivity, before and after T&C. 2-Parter.
1. Eyes of the Sleepers

Hey.

So this is the first fanfic that I've written in a year, probably more than that, and the first NCIS fic that I have _ever _written. That said, I know that this sort of story is becoming a nasty cliche within the NCIS fandom, but come on, they're still fun to read...right?

This is a two-parter, and the second part will be posted later. Please review! Please? It makes me a happy and swift writer.

Thanks,

Cricket

* * *

**The Lances Unlifted**

Eyes of the Sleepers

* * *

"You are not broken," he says, twisting her hair up in his fist and pulling until her head lolls back, her throat exposed. "We have not cut your tongue out, not yet. And you can breathe."

She swallows hard and for a moment her throat expands. The flesh rises and falls, pulled taut between her chin and her breastbone, two beads of sweat following the curve and pooling down at the center of her clavicle as she struggles to draw in a single breath in such an awkward position. He laughs, but the sound is sharp and brief.

"Well, perhaps you cannot breathe right _now_, but we've _kept _you breathing, yes? We've been kind enough not to _cut _your throat."

He lowers his voice, lowers his face so that she can feel his breath hot against her scalp.

"So why do you not speak?"

She closes her eyes.

"It is a simple question. If you answer me, it might not be too late for us to free you. You might not have to die here like a worthless coward."

He's lying. She knows that he will kill her, even if she tells him everything; even if she cooperates and answers every question without hesitating and calls him _sir _and treats him like a God, in the end he will drag her out behind the cell and cut her throat. She feels Death lingering like a shadow just beyond the doorway, in the corners of her cell, behind her back, licking at her neck when she fights to find solace in sleep.

He changes tactics; she's not surprised.

"Or we can end this here. Now." He draws one hand up along the side of her strained neck and croons, clicks his tongue in an act of sympathy. "You're in so much pain now. If you answer my question I can end it, make it quick. You won't feel a thing. I promise."

She wonders if ever a sentence leaves his lips that _isn't _a lie, and she thinks _probably not_. She still isn't sure if he has any humanity left inside of him. Part of her wants very badly to take his knife away, to turn the blade in upon his belly and slice him open and _see _for herself if there's anything but blackness and rotted things inside him; part of her is convinced that there's only wet, bloody sand packed in beneath his ribcage, and one well-aimed slash might make him burst like a sack of rice, might spill the garbage and the rot and the festering fleshly excuse for _human being _out across her feet.

She puts these spiteful images in her head and the idea feeds the fire that has rapidly sprung about in her heart, makes her hope that maybe she will someday find her leverage and _kill_ him, and tear him apart.

It keeps her focused, but it drives her mad.

* * *

It rains hard one morning. The sound actually jolts her from her sleep. She flexes her broken fingers, wrists bound tightly with a plastic cord behind her back, and turns weary, swollen eyes up into the darkness. Raindrops hit the roof above her cell, make a careful, booming sort of rhythm that slowly starts to resonate within her chest. She clings to the cadence of the rain, finds momentary solace there. Because it does not remind her of the desert, of Israel or Somalia or war or tortures or promises of death – it reminds her of DC. She takes it as a single, subtle window back into a world that had welcomed her with a charming sort of ease that made her heart stagger. She listens and tries not to think about the chair that she's been strapped to for _too long _or the bones that have been broken _too many times, _and for a fleeting moment, it works.

It starts to rain early one morning and stops before noon, abruptly as the late spring rains often are, and when the sound has faded she wonders where that piece of time went, and why every other moment of her captivity thereafter feels like an eternity.

The night, he crawls into her cell like a rattlesnake and rapes her against one wall and she decides that no, there is nothing human inside him, nothing salvageable inside a beast such as this, and when he's finished he drags her back into her chair and straps her down and asks her again. She spits in his face.

And when he's finished beating her, when he slinks back out to confer with Death on the other side of the door, and leaves her there, she cries for the first time. She does not cry out of sorrow or despair or self-pity – she cries because the anger and the outrage that have _become _her are threatening to singe her from the inside out, and the feeling is physically _painful_. Her wrists have been bound for too long and the need to lash out, to throttle something or to pound someone's skull against the stone walls is building up beneath her skin. She cries out her frustration and she swears that as soon as she is free, as soon as the ropes have been cut, she will draw blood.

And Death hovers at her shoulders all night.

* * *

They leave no avenue unexplored when they torture her.

She wracks her brain for possibilities at each day's end, rethinking her own techniques and the techniques of her fellow agents, at first as a way of consoling herself in the knowledge that _it could have been worse_, but eventually, she runs out of ideas and so do they.

There are burns beneath her arms and on her thighs and lower back, the flesh swollen up and puckered, black in some places where they got a little carried away and left the embers on too long; her scalp throbs from the constant yanking of hair, and at the base of her skull, the skin is punctured, rough and bleeding where whole locks have been torn away; her wrists, cut by rope and swollen and bruised, begin to turn green, and she suspects that the infection might actually end up killing her before anything else does; one broken wrist has already healed at an angle; she can feel the splinters of her ribs scraping dangerously close to her lungs, her heart, and tries in vain not too squirm _too much _when they hurt her because she is afraid that the broken ribs, rattling in her chest like shards of glass, might puncture a lung if she isn't careful; scratches, some deep and scarred or scabbed and bleeding, scissoring all across her throat where blades have been, a threat to assure her that their knives are sharp enough to slice straight through into her cervical vertebrae if she fails to cooperate or, perhaps, cooperates too much; her thighs are mottled in bruises and scratches and _bite marks_.

And her back is a mess of slices, burns, lashes, bruises, a bit of everything. She can't feel her face but she figures that the blood gummy in her hair and her eyelashes is some indication that the flesh, there, has been mangled as well.

They strangle her and press their hard, stale lips against hers and she wants so badly to _claw at them_. When they lift her from her chair and toss her gracelessly upon the filthy ground, pressing boots into the soft flesh of her belly and snapping her ankles, she wishes that she had her gun.

Sometimes, when the blows become too much, and blood begins to pool beneath the skin and she becomes disoriented, confused, she imagines that there is a gun in her palm. The feeling is so real that she clutches her fingers around the empty air, the coolness of the barrel drawing goose-pimples up along her battered arms, the smoothness making her dizzy with elation because _maybe she can get a shot in_ and burst somebody's brains open like a melon across the sand with the gun that isn't really there.

Darkness always claims her before she has the chance.

They've covered all their bases, physically and mentally, and eventually their visits become less frequent. Saleem is the only one who bothers to see her on a regular basis, and he seems always on-edge, frustrated and annoyed by her obstinacy. He shuffles the sand with his boots and flexes his fingers, pacing around her. She can't decide if he's trying to intimidate her or if he's really just wracking his brain for _anything _that he can do to her to make her talk.

She hasn't spoken a word since they brought her in.

Maybe he thinks that they've broken her too much; that the words are simply gone from her, clotted in the soil with her blood and sweat and tears.

Maybe that is more dangerous to her than anything else, because suddenly he turns on her often and his hands on her throat are tighter, when he kicks her he aims for her heart because _he knows her ribs are broken _and maybe he just wants to _get rid _of this silent, loyal soldier who refuses to have the words beaten from her. She becomes disposable.

But a month passes and she is still alive.

She catalogs her injuries, every method of torture used on her, and she _swears _that she will survive this and find at least _one _of them, if she can't have Saleem himself, to corner and to hurt as much as they have hurt her.

This oath and the oath to remain silent are all that matter, eventually.

* * *

He throws a canvas bag over her head and lifts her, pushing her angrily out from the room for the first time in weeks and she thinks, _Oh God, he's going to kill me, he is going to take me outside behind the cell and cut my throat_, and there's a man marching smoothly on her left. She is certain that this man is Death, following her along to take her into the blackness.

But as they shuffle from the hallway into a new room that feel disconcertingly similar to the room they've just left, and she's shoved down into another chair, she thinks that maybe he's got something up his sleeve, some new, unheard of tactic.

Crazily, she thinks that they'll be starting all over again from square one, every avenue of torture, and she doesn't know if she can handle that.

But then the bag is gone and the cool, dusty air hits her face. The brightness takes her by surprise for a moment and her breath catches – and then abruptly settles.

_Tony._

He sits across from her, looking pained and uncomfortable, but she thinks that the look in his eyes is unbroken. He has not been in Hell very long, not long enough.

She wonders if her eyes are the same, if they hold that same stubborn will, and thinks _probably not_. The only thing that burns behind her eyes these days is quiet rage.

So when he asks her,

"Can you fight?"

She can't help but feel the wave of despair and long-forgotten hope and all that Goddamn _conviction _bubbling up from the pit of her belly; hatred that fuelled her and now has filled her up, boiling in every pore and every crevice with the need to spill blood and to make them suffer, to cut them away from this world and to burn every piece of them like filth.

_Yes._

She can fight.

* * *

Recent studies have found that reviews can dramatically decrease the rate of extinction among cuddly, exotic animals. So please - do it for the polar bears?

- Cricket


	2. The Trumpet Unblown

So what do you do when you've got an 8,000-word short story due in 12 hours, and you haven't got an idea in the world and you've been putting it off for three weeks? Why, you write fanfiction, that's what you do! _Stall, stall, stall! _

Sorry it took so long to update. I got busy with school and such nonsense, and I had some difficulty figuring out just how to approach this chapter. I ultimately decided to jump post-Truth and Consequences, and I know that may be something of a let-down, but I'm trying to remain canon with that episode.

I'm glad you liked the first chapter. Hopefully you'll like this one, too!

Oh, and as per usual, I shot a review off to the most recent story of each of the reviewers for chapter one. Spread the cheer, you know? The least I could do. (You see? Some authors find it pertinent to hold their chapters hostage and ask for reviews as ransom, but I figure _bribery _is just as effective, and far less violent.)

And thanks everybody, for your continued efforts to save the polar bears. Really, they love that. They told me to tell you that they're grateful.

So enjoy!

Much love,

Cricket.

* * *

**The Lances Unlifted**

The Trumpets Unblown

* * *

She lands in DC a ghost, confused and dazed and out of sorts with herself. Tony and Gibbs and the others can all see it in her step, in the way she carries herself; a limp on a limb that was never broken, glazed eyes and a distant, controlled voice; no wince or cringe when her wounds are brushed against, which strikes them all as odd. She was hurt badly in Somalia. But she does not seem to notice the physical pains.

Something broke in her, something came loose and fell away and she doesn't know how to find it and fix it again.

Tony is the only one who realizes, sitting opposite her on the airplane back, that she managed to survive those four, painful months _without _breaking, and whatever happened to warp her this way, it didn't happen until _after _he found her. Didn't happen until _after _she was dropped into the chair across from him, a world away, in the dusty cell that had been her Hell.

He peers into her dull, conflicted eyes as the plane shudders and makes them sway, and he doesn't understand what happened to change her or why his _presence _blew out the flame in her eyes. He could have sworn that back in that cell, in that room, she had _seemed _to him to be alive. Alright. But something's changed and now she's broken. It makes him angry to think it might be his fault. It makes him feel helpless.

But she suffers quietly, and he can't bring himself to force the truth from her. He can't even bring himself to _ask_.

* * *

As she stands from the ER bed and regards the room, she shrugs a jacket over her shoulders, ties her hair back into a messy ponytail and smiles gratefully at the nurse. Stray, curly wisps of hair stick to her forehead with the sweat and the blood that the nurse couldn't wipe off. She needs to shower. She feels filthy.

"Don't let the pain get too bad before you take one of the pills, now." It's the same speech the doctor gave her; they're not impressed by her high threshold for pain.

"If you let it get to an 8 or a 9, you waited too long and it's gonna to take more pills to get it back down to a 0."

The bones in her wrists and her fingers were broken. They healed wrong and had to be re-set – Ziva holds her tongue, doubting that the pain will _ever _be back to 0.

"So you want to take the pills before it gets that bad. Understand?"

"Yes." She understood it the first time.

The nurse hesitates as Ziva inches closer to the door.

"You're sure you want to leave? You could stay a while longer. I know it would make Dr. Dunham very happ-"

"-yes," she interrupts, bringing her hand up between herself and the nurse to halt her speech, "I am sure."

Gibbs appears in the doorway and lifts his chin. She gives the nurse one final parting smile; the gesture is despairingly strange to her these days. It pulls her cracked lips and makes them burn, tightens the muscles of her bruised face in an uncomfortable way; but she gets a tiny thrill from knowing that she has _something _to smile about, now, so she takes the opportunity eagerly.

She follows Gibbs back out the door.

They let her leave the hospital without a wheelchair, for which she is thankful. She doesn't need to be sitting down, has been seated for months, and even though walking is a painful chore for her, the feeling of standing on her own two feet, of choosing her own footsteps and controlling her own whereabouts is exhilarating.

But her legs are still a bit wobbly from her months spent sitting. She tries not to let this weakness show, but as she sets her jaw and clenches her fists, her steps come out stiffly; she walks straight-backed, a bit too jerky.

Halfway down the hallway, their shoes yelping against the slick, linoleum floor, Gibbs turns to her and asks,

"Anything permanent?"

She hesitates. She understands that he is asking about her injuries. More than likely, he wants to know if she is still useful – to Mossad or NCIS. She isn't sure whether he wants her back in Israel, or if perhaps, blessedly, he still considers her one of his own.

"Yes." _Too many scars._

His lip twitches. A moment passes before he speaks again.

"I'll drop you off at a hotel." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small clip of money, passing it to her. "You can pay me back later."

For a moment, she finds this offer absurd and considers turning it down, but realizes that she has nowhere to stay and no money to pay for her clothes or rent or toiletries.

Nodding, she carefully takes the money and shoves it into her pocket.

"Thank you."

* * *

One night she awakens from a nightmare, startled. She immediately forgets what the nightmare was even about, but as she breaks from the dream-world into reality, her mind takes a moment to adjust, and the sensations are still with her, the fear and the panic. Terror sinks its teeth into her throat and clings to her even as she awakens, frightened and short of breath, and in her panic she reaches beneath her pillow, fumbles for the gun and draws it, sitting up sharply.

There are shadows in the corners of her bedroom, shimmering like pools of oil. She gazes into them for a moment, heart pounding, some ghost sensation pulling goose-pimples along her forearms, and for the first time in her life, she accidentally pulls the trigger.

A single slug explodes from the barrel and pierces the air. It hits a mirror on the far wall.

The crash startles her and she drops the gun to shield her ears as pieces of glass fall to the floor, glimmering in the moonlight, before they settle like little pools of silver on the carpet. She heaves a breath, feels the particles of glass like dust in the air, scratching her throat and making her lungs itch.

Finally, she lets her hands fall back into her lap. The gun is lost someplace within the bedcovers. But her skin is still crawling, her wrists hurt, and her pulse is thundering in her ears. She regards the empty room, the shards of glass – there is no one in the shadows.

She feels like someone is watching her. It occurs to her that this feeling is irrational, has been with her for longer than she can remember. The sensations on her arms and her legs and her wrists are phantom touches, the ethereal remnants of her tormentors; shadows that followed her out of Somalia, demons that refuse to let her leave that cell.

Trembling, she reaches for the phone and punches in the number, knowing that she is too proud to admit that she is scared but feeling too vulnerable to go back to sleep.

He answers on the fifth ring.

"Gibbs," he says.

She doesn't know what to say. The fear has made her mind sharp but she cannot form the words, regrets this call immediately, and settles for the first thing that pops into her head.

"I should not have called. Sorry."

Before she can hang up – was she even intending to? – he says,

"Ziva." More of a statement than a question.

She lets the silence linger for another moment.

"I shot my mirror," she says suddenly, feeling that it is entirely pertinent to point this out.

"Why?" He doesn't sound surprised.

"I did not mean to," she says.

"Are you hurt?"

"Yes."

He senses something in her tone, and picks his words carefully as he adds,

"Did you hurt yourself firing the gun?"

"No."

"Old wounds?" Still careful.

"Yes." She pauses. "Old wounds."

"It'll be a while yet, before those can heal."

"I know." There is another pause, and then, regretting her words as they pass through her lips, shuddering at the very fact that she is admitting this, she says,

"I am afraid."

"I know."

"Gibbs. I shot my mirror."

"Ziva," he says, "clean up the mess, and then go back to bed. Get some sleep."

She does.

* * *

Ducks cozy up along the shore, shrugging thick beads of water from their down. They crowd in amongst each other, bleary eyed and slow, regard the expanse of the lake with a dazed sort of boredom. They barely turn to acknowledge her as she drifts by.

The remnants of the morning's mist still roll along the fringes of the lake like flour powdering the edges on a ball of dough. It leaves condensation on the leaves in its wake, peppers the honey-colored foliage with little jewels of dew. The scent of damp feathers and soil hang thick in the air.

She beats the trail lightly, breathing hard. Her lungs ache with the weight of the cold in the air, but she can't stop. Won't stop. She had always been a runner, but the habit has become compulsive since she was rescued. The freedom in running thrills her.

But something more sinister follows her as she rounds the lake and carries back up to the sidewalk. Her feet sting, her knees are throbbing, but there's an energy pulsing in her veins that keeps her going; the sort of feeling that comes from anger, she recognizes; the sort of adrenaline that awakens her at night, fills her with the urge to pitch something across the room or hit the wall or – most appalling – _scream_ or _cry. _

She sets her jaw and quickens her pace.

She is running from something. She knows that. It frightens her that she cannot understand _what _she needs to flee from or _why _it's tailing her.

The traffic of the city rushes by on her right. There are horns blaring and tires squealing on the slick, grey streets. Steam rises from the gutters and drifts along beneath the bumpers of cars, at the base of the lamp-post and the streetlight, flickering gold and red as the cars rush by. As she nears her street, the first raindrop hits the concrete and turns it black. By the time her hotel comes into view, the sky has been clotted with dark, imposing clouds, and the rain begins to fall heavily. She doesn't mind it. This is the first time that it's rained since she returned.

She slows to a stop, peering up at the sky. The rain begins to drench her, though her hair is temporarily shielded by her orange running cap – still, in the few short minutes that she spends standing beneath the downpour, the water manages to soak through the fabric. She can feel the dampness tingling her scalp.

Something flashes suddenly behind her eyes. A dark room. The chair. Static pulsing through the hollow air from some distant storm. This sound. _This sound_, of the rain, in that room of that cell in Somalia. He raped her that night. When the rain had stopped and darkness fell and the only flicker of light in the room came from the weak, twisting lamp strapped to the ceiling, but she hadn't been able to see him or his face and _he raped her_ in that cell in Somalia.

She's lived with this memory for months. For weeks, since her return to DC. But this is the first time that it's rained and she can feel it on her face, here. But the sound is the same. It overtakes her, forces her mind to reel back. His touch crawls along her arms and makes her tremble, lingers on her skin like a ghost. Sorrow and grief grip her. But the anger only flares.

Anger and despair.

Saleem had hurt her.

She never got her revenge.

She closes her eyes and attempts to refocus on the present, but the air has become hazy and warm. She is aware of the fact that she _should_ be cold, that she is drenched, but her heart is hammering and she can't quite tell whether the liquid on her brow is water or sweat; if her eyesight is wavering from the rain that shakes the air around her, or from the quiet, angry tears that she can feel behind her eyes.

Trying hard to shake this feeling, she notices the sharp, grey shape of her hotel, and realizes for the first time that she's less than fifty yards from its door. She should get out of the rain.

But as she moves forward, she notices him. He's huddled at the top of the steps, shielded from the downpour by the arch of the doorway. That sign, _Windsor Inn_, is declared in fancy white lettering just above him, where the keystone should be. His hands are jammed awkwardly in his pockets and he peers up past the lip of the arch to watch the rainfall. He hasn't noticed her yet. She wonders why he's waiting there, how he knew where to find her.

She realizes suddenly that she should probably start looking for a new, more permanent place.

But she takes a step forward and she's still trembling when she says, shouting above the noise of the storm and the traffic to her back,

"What are you doing here?"

He blinks and looks down at her. He smiles and it's awkward; everything about him here and now is _awkward_, and she doesn't know how or when he managed to lose his charm.

"Waiting for you," he says. He looks furtively back to the sky. "Come on, you're getting soaked."

She doesn't move.

"_Why _are you waiting for me, Tony?" The water that has clotted in her cap begins to spill down the center of her face. It collects at the tip of her nose and her chin.

His smile falters. He shrugs.

"I wanted to see how you were doing. You know, catch up." The left side of his face pinches up as he struggles to be heard above the roar of the rain. "Haven't seen much of you since we got back."

"I am fine."

He lifts his shoulders, lets them fall.

"Okay. Well – look, can we talk? Come out of the rain."

She doesn't. After a moment, he sighs and steps closer to the edge of the patio – though, Ziva notices, he's still safe from the rain, completely dry. A raindrop falls from her chin as he begins to speak again.

"I know you're not fine. Are you seeing anybody?" She blinks, surprised by his bluntness; he notices this and realizes what he said, shaking his head rapidly. He's quick to amend himself: "Ah, no, I mean…are you talking to somebody? You know, like…a therapist."

She bites her lip. Part of her is glad that he's here, that he's shooting his mouth off, because now she has a _reason _to be angry; now she has _someone _to direct her anger towards.

"Yes, Tony," she says curtly, "my _psychological health _has been taken care of. Thank you." She smiles tightly, dipping her head dramatically as she thanks him. He looks down at his feet and chews on the inside of his cheek.

"Ziva…," he says, looking up. His voice has gotten quieter and she struggles to hear him. "We're just worried. You haven't been…" he's conflicted, she thinks as she watches him, half-curious and half-resentful; like he doesn't want to be here and he doesn't want to be speaking with her, but something is forcing him. "You haven't been the same since you got back and _we're just worried_."

She considers this for a moment, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, each shoe filled with water now. She wants to take him seriously. But he's caught her at the wrong moment. The sound of the rain is threatening to pull her back again, and her heart is _pounding_. The anger that fueled her is boiling up and his awkward, half-hearted questions throw her over the edge; he thinks that she is broken. He may be right, but it stings to hear him say it.

He shakes his head and looks down again.

"You don't have to be alone here, Ziva. We were there for you then and we're here now. That's what partners do." He smiles fleetingly; she notices that he's still referring to the whole team – '_we're here,' – _ as if he's afraid of voicing concern solely on _his _behalf. "They cover each others' backs."

She blinks. _He covered her back._ This is true, she knows, thinking back to the cell in Somalia. But he did something more than that – he rescued her. He and McGee and Gibbs. They covered her back – and they killed Saleem.

Then, with this thought, some emotion suddenly washes over her, disgusting and strange. It hits her, then. This feeling.

It feels like she's been cheated out of some finality, like something precious was stolen from her, something she'd managed to hang on to and to nurture during her months in captivity, only to have it torn from her arms the moment she was rescued: she's angry and frustrated.

She was never able to get her revenge.

Tony took it for her. Gibbs took it for her.

They killed her demons for her, and it does not sit well with her.

"I want to kill someone," she says suddenly, loudly. Her voice shakes; there are hot, angry tears in her eyes, now. The rain is there but the tears are, too.

Strangely, he doesn't look startled. He simply looks at her and raises his brows.

"That's not a good idea. Don't do that," he says.

"What am I supposed to do now? How can I live with this?" The words are coming fast and she can't stop, the adrenaline hits her hard. "I wanted to kill them, Tony, I spent _months _living with the hope that I could kill them in return for all the suffering they caused me. You took that away from me. _What am I supposed to do now_?"

She hates herself for blaming the man who effectively rescued her, swept into Africa and saved her life, risked his own in the process. But that hatred only makes her anger and frustration stronger, and she can't stop it now.

He watches her for a moment as if entranced in this scene of her breaking down before him in the rain, cars rushing by in little puffs of steam, and then slowly he moves towards her, down a step. He takes his hands out of his pockets. The rain falls along his shoulders.

"You're mad at me because you didn't get to kill anyone?"

She nods emphatically, glancing quickly away and around, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world and there's something wrong with him for not noticing.

"Yes."

"This is my fault? You get kidnapped and tortured by a crazy terrorist after _leaving _NCIS, _I _travel across the world to rescue you and you're hurt and it's _my fault?_"

"Yes!"

"Oh, well," he says. "As long as we're being logical."

"Tony." She peers up at him but quickly looks away. "You know what he did to me? He tortured me. He raped me." She hates saying this, hates admitting it, cringes as the words leave her lips and she watches him cringe, too. The muscles in his jaw tighten and he looks briefly down at his feet.

She continues, "But I could not fight back then. I had to do nothing, because I was weak and alone, and I was facing death. But when you showed up, I had a real chance. It was my first chance to fight back, and you gave that to me." For a moment she looks grateful, and he looks up again. "But then you took it away."

She closes her eyes, draws in a deep breath and opens them. She nods once. "So yes, I am angry with you. I _need_ to be angry with you, for a while."

He slips his hands back into his pockets. He pauses, quietly observing her, and she thinks that probably he doesn't like the idea of being the target of her anger, and that probably he will resent her for it for a long time. But he is her partner, and she thinks that maybe he will understand this cosmic unfairness, and why this burden falls on them. Maybe he's willing to shoulder it with her.

At length, he nods.

"Okay. I get it."

She feels her pulse beginning to even out, and nods in return. Her fingers are numb from the cold, and there are raindrops in her eyelashes, now.

"But, really, Ziva." He gestures behind him, towards the entrance to the hotel and the fancy white letters declaring _Windsor Inn. _"Let's get out of the rain."

* * *

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,  
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;  
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,  
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,  
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;  
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,  
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,  
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:  
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,  
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

- From **The Destruction of Sennacherib**, by Lord Byron

* * *

That's it. Thank you for reading!  
And remember, NASA has recently discovered that, among the most nutrient, life-sustaining substances in the world,  
reviews are also one-hundred-percent eco-friendly. So be green! Save a tree, leave a review~.

- Cricket


End file.
